Part Time Online Marketers: Your Biggest Obstacles Revealed!

If you’ve been on this blog before, you know that we focus on helping other part time online marketers and network marketers to break through obstacles that may be preventing them from moving forward in their business.

Recently, we decided to take a fresh look at our niche to be sure we were addressing the most important issues facing part time marketers.

Cindy advised us that one of the best ways to find out more was to ASK QUESTIONS.

So we did!

We asked questions to Part Time Online and Network Marketers about their struggles and the obstacles preventing them from being more successful in their business.

We interviewed part time online marketers that we met on Facebook and from our email list. We asked questions using the Facebook Questions application, and we started forum discussions in BetterNetworker.

We asked the question in various ways to get the most responses, but it all boiled down to 2 themes:

What is your Biggest Struggle or Obstacle in being a Part Time Networker?

What’s Stopping you from Making More (Any) Money in your Online Home Business?

The Facebook Ask a Question application

Part Time Online Marketers – What’s Stopping You?

First, let me sincerely thank everyone who took the time to answer our questions and contribute to the discussion of this important topic. Since the majority of online and network marketers are part time, this group (unfortunately) also represents the biggest proportion of online marketing failures.

Some of the challenges facing Part Time online marketers are substantially different than those that their Full Time counterparts experience.

For example, time is an obvious challenge for most Part Timers.

But other obstacles that Part Time Online Marketers face are exactly the same as all other marketers, as the results revealed.

This was somewhat a surprise to us, but extremely useful information.

Part Time Online Marketers – Biggest Obstacles Revealed!

From our research, there were several obstacles discussed that make it difficult for Part Time Online Marketers to move forward in their business, but listed below are the Top 3 according to our research:

TIME

This was not a big surprise, but it was good to verify this with other Part Time Marketers, since we spend a lot of time on our blog providing tips and strategies for being more productive and how to leverage time most effectively.

It seemed that, while many felt that the lack of time was a huge obstacle, many others felt that they needed to be more productive with their time.

This is a subtle but important difference and one that we will focus on more in future posts.

SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

This was a huge surprise! We expected answers like “lack of money” or “need a better sponsor or mentor” and very few respondents chose these.

But I never expected Mindset issues to be chosen as one of the top obstacles to Part Time Online Marketers.

In this way, I feel that Part Time and Full Time Marketers face similar challenges, although the actual self limiting beliefs may be different in the two groups.

Negative self talk like “I’ll never have enough time to make this work” or “There’s no way I can compete with Full Time Online Marketers“ are common negative mindset obstacles facing Part Time Network and Online Marketers.

We will definitely be focusing more on Mindset issues facing our niche prospects in future blog posts.

NOT ENOUGH HIGH QUALITY PROSPECTS

This is another obstacle shared by both Part Time and Full Time Online Marketers.

This can range from not getting enough traffic to a website or blog, or not attracting the right (high quality) prospects for their business.

Our area of expertise in online marketing traffic generation is in BLOGGING, and we offer many tips and strategies on our blog on how to gain popularity in your blog and get more traffic and conversions to sales.

In the interest of trying to play to our strengths, we will not try to teach traffic generation techniques other than blogging to our niche prospects. Rather, we will refer them to other outstanding Traffic Generation blogs such as TrafficGenerationCafe.com and ThinkTraffic.com.

What a wealth of information we received about our target market and niche prospects just by asking the right questions and listening carefully to the answers.

It is a huge step in being absolutely certain you are providing the most important solutions to your niche.

From here on, we will be focusing our blog primarily on these 3 obstacles described above.

We know we are correct in our blog focus and will be offering solutions that really matter to our target market.

Why?

Because we asked them!

Key Takeaway

To really understand your niche prospects, it’s important to ask them exactly what problems they have and how you can help.

You can do this by taking advantage of various online platforms such as surveys, forums, and social media.

Assume nothing!

Your Turn

How do you research your niche?

Do you have a favorite way to ask questions of your target market?

JOIN in the the Discussion and LEAVE A COMMENT, and PLEASE SHARE this post with your friends and followers on your favorite Social Media platforms.

Dr. Bob Clarke teaches Part Time Marketers how to better leverage their time, effort, money, skills, and other people's knowledge in maximizing their business success. Don't forget to grab your Free Training Grow a Thriving Business in 30 Minutes/Day or Less -- an essential resource for anyone struggling to build their business Part Time.

At first, I couldn’t believe that Mindset was an obstacle, but I guess it would have to be. So many people fail online and we all know if you have the right mindset you will be successful.
As far as “Time” that was a big one for me. I didn’t leverage my time well at first, but now I am a lot better at doing so.

I took a course from Rhonda Hess – The Prosperous Coach who also helps people find their niche. She too says research is important and recommends that people interview their target market to find out what problems they are experiencing so that you know for sure what solutions they are looking for.

Another point she makes is if these people are willing to look for help. There are certain target market groups who are just self-sufficient and even though they may have obstacles, they will not seek help.

Many times, we jump to the conclusion of what our target market want and find that we were on the wrong path.

That’s a fine yet very important distinction that Rhonda brings out, and one that I had not considered. I suppose there are times when you run into a niche where people aren’t really looking for help. That’s an interesting one, because I think if your solution is good enough, they will bite. But who knows?

Great article. It definitely takes a toll on my body and brain when it comes to writing. I definitely agree that TIME is the biggest factor in life. There seems to be not enough of it. Thanks for your post and helping me realize what needs to be done in order to overcome these obstacles. Thanks!

This was such a wake up call for me. There were a couple of results you posted that surprised me and some that didn’t. “I will never have enough time to compete with full time marketers” blew me away. I had never thought anyone would feel they have to compete with anyone. I assumed everyone went into building their business “competing” with themselves and not the “next door neighbour”. Very interesting and worth spending some more time on.

Thanks for your insights. I was surprised by some of the answers as well, but not by the one about competing, for I also have felt that. When you see full time marketers getting up on stage and getting awards, while I feel happy for them I also find myself comparing how I’m doing to what they’ve been able to achieve. Sometimes I don’t like what I see in that comparison, but I am not one to make excuses. Instead, I vow to find better ways to use my limited time and get more results. And that’s pretty much why this blog was born.

Another great post, bob. I really enjoyed reading the obstacles that part time online marketers are facing. Asking questions is great way to research in your niche. Thanks for sharing this awesome stuff.

Thanks, Dev…. I think that most obstacles we part timers face are exactly the same as full time bloggers or marketers. The exception is likely to be TIME, but as I said, its more in how you use it rather than the absolute amount of time you have to work your business.

I enjoyed reading your post and learning about the most common challenge areas for part time business owners.

I have to say I was not surprised by the results and I am sure there are as many full time business owners with the exact same issues.

For instance most marketers expect too much of themselves in too short a time by doing too much in the time they have whether this is 2 hours a day or 10. I have coem to belive that it’s not time that is the issue but what we are trying to fit into that time.

As for self limiting beliefs I personally think this is at the top of the list for a lot of business owners but it’s good to see that a lot more are acknowledging this now. When you shine a light on a problem then you can start to fix it and I am sure your blog will address a lot of these issues for people goong forward.

I personally find that sometimes, I do not have much time on certain days of the week and that can affect my online work but that doesn’t mean it is an obstacle for me. My reason is not because I have different thinking with many others but because my main purpose to start an internet business is basically I find that I do have the extra few hours to earn extra income from the internet. Maybe, I have 1 hour early morning, 1 hour during lunch time, another hour after dinner and another hour before bed.

However, the reasons you provided here are all the truth about the situation many networkers are facing !

Hi Bob;
I find that the time and prospects are the two biggest issues. You need time to find good prospects and proper handling of a good prospect takes time as well. Finding a balance between these two is not an easy task, especially on a part time basis.

Also, great post. A similar one about researching a niche would be much appreciated. 🙂

Bob and Rosemary,
What a great article!
It is so exciting to see others taking those methods that work and implementing them.
This is such a good case-in-point, that asking questions, is the key to generating
highly specific and targeting content for your niche audience.

I do not have anything to add, except that most email autoresponder services also offer survey forms that can be sent out to your list.

Another good place to go to get a good survey form is Survey Monkey dot com. They make doing online surveys very very easy, and you can even post the survey to facebook.

Anyway,
this is a great article. Keep them coming.
Martin Dale-your friend in business

Great to see you again. Glad you found this information useful and applicable to your world.

We also use Survey Monkey a lot and really like the service. The only thing I don’t like about it is that the system doesn’t notify you when a survey has been filled out. We’re still looking for other options, but for now it does the job.

Thanks for posting this. Seems like we all fall under the same boat at times. For me, I tend to have trouble figuring out what to write about and who my target should be. Maybe it’s the overload at times of my brain thinking too much, that I end up having brain farts >.< Thanks for the insight and hope to overcome these obstacles.

Hi Bob,
Nice post.Being a part-time marketer, I can understand how it feels to be when we have time restrictions.I always feel that I can do more and much better but then the routine work comes in between and these thoughts simply become fantasies.I hope to find a balance between these two lives.

I’ve found that it comes down to scheduling and sticking to it as much as possible. I work 50+ hrs/week, so only have a couple of hours each night to work on my business. But I schedule those times with items that give me the most “bang for my buck” and most advancement in my business, and then I stick to it.

Great post Bob and enjoyed hearing the problem areas part-time network marketers are facing. I have found that this can be the same even if you are doing this full-time as well.

I have asked questions to the readers of my blog, I’ve surveyed my list and done a poll on Facebook as well. I have found all of these very helpful in learning how I can be of more assistance to my prospects and customers.

Oliver is right though about the prospects. That was a huge problem for me in the beginning. I would constantly stumble over what I should say and chased them all off. It’s a learning process and something that just takes time to master. Once you can get that down you’ll learn that your ideal prospect is everywhere.

Enjoyed this post and I especially enjoy learning others views on this topic. Thank you for sharing these results with us.

thanks for bringing up that topic. Well, lack of time can also discipline us and forces us to focus. The trouble is that most people don’t focus, whether they’re part timers or not.

My mentor Tom Schreiter says that most people had more than enough quality prospects. But they turned them into bad ones because they said the wrong things to them. And now they want more good prospects to ruin ? Learning the skills what to say to people (including asking the right questions, so true) is crucial. But most people don’t want to learn these skills, they just want more leads.

I agree Oliver…. discipline and focus can usually cure any time-related issues, but like you said most don’t have the discipline or the focus to make it happen, so they quit, frustrated and blaming everything but themselves.

Your mentor sounds like a very wise man! I’ve heard it said that “you can’t say the wrong thing to the right person.”

UGH! What a bunch of hogwash! Probably the same person that said “everyone is a prospect!” LOL

Great article Bob – I just keep going back to that photo at the top – yikes! You know I’ve tried this online business thing both ways – part-time and full time. Part-time didn’t work for me for one simple reason – I felt emotionally and physically beat up at the end of the day and had nothing more to give, even to myself. Time was an issue it’s true, but primarily it was the combination of working for a company who’s corporate culture and values I no longer believed in and while having to put up a positive, supportive front for the 700 representatives in my district while taking the brunt of their complaints about the company. I finally moved on and I truly believe that decision saved my life!

It’s a bad situation like the one you described, when you get home so mentally and physically exhausted that you have nothing left to give. I had a job like that once and fooled myself to stay in it way too long by justifying the salary. No amount of money in the world is worth that feeling!

Glad to hear you had the wisdom and courage to move on, Marquita! Too many don’t!

Great post! Thanks for sharing. I agree with you here. For me its forum and our goal is to always provide solutions to the needs and wants of our target market because thats what our readers are there for on our blog, to seek solutions to their problems. Thanks again.

Very true, Sonny….
If you’re not providing solutions, or at least discussing the prevalent problems you readers face, then it’s likely you are writing your blog for yourself and soon it will become a very lonely place!